The Lady or...
by Keraelian
Summary: Duo wants Heero to fight him! Is he messed up? Or is it something you wouldn't expect.


My first Gundam Wing fic. I like the way it turned out. R&R always welcome. I know it must be hard to come up with something new every time, especially when there are 8700+ GW fics out there. So, if you review the stories you like, you'll get more of what you want! Easy!  
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I. Do. Not. Own. Gun. Dam. Wing.  
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The Wing Gundam blasted the face panel of the Tallgeese relentlessly, the short burst of ammo from the vulcan cannons making explosion after satisfying explosion erupt all around the older suit's head.  
  
The Tallgeese retaliated by crossing its arms and flying strait at Wing, but the suit's pilot brought its shield up in time. As Tallgeese came back to land on the ground, that same shield shot out underneath Zech's Tallgeese, and knocked the huge machine into the snow for the fourth time during the intense battle.  
  
"All right!" cried Duo, who was piloting the Wing mech. "And this is on the hardest mode!" He laughed. "Bred for battle, indeed!"  
The Tallgeese had resumed its mindless patterns. Duo was forced onto the defensive, and each attack, while blocked, was eating a portion of Wing's energy meter. "Damn! Zechs has gotten a whole lot better since I left the options screen!"  
  
Finally, Wing lost it to the Tallgeese, two rounds to one. "Endless Duel, my ass," commented Duo, who was startled when Heero's voice rose behind him to say, "A fight between he and I would never end that way."  
  
"Heero old buddy! Welcome to the land of the living once more!"  
"I've been up for three hours, braided baka," Heero told Duo. "I've been working on my real Gundam."  
  
Duo ignored that. "Come on over here, Heero! You play a round or two with me!" he invited.  
"Iie. I was on my way out again when I came to see what the shouting was about."  
"Come on! A chance for some actual combat, after all these months." He grinned.  
  
"If that is what you call combat.." Heero said, but he came over to the couch to watch before actually taking up a controller. After an hour in which Heero felt he did nothing but waste time, he picked up the lump of grey plastic that formed the controls for this game system.  
"You be Deathscythe and I'll control Wing," indicated Duo by selecting that machine before Heero could even "Hn," which he did anyway.  
  
A split screen came up showing the faces of the pilots and the suits they'd be controlling. "That's so weird to watch," observed Duo.  
"You'd rather stare at Lara Croft for another afternoon, you'd have played her game." Duo rolled his eyes without bothering to glance at Heero, almost missing the start of their match. Duo soon realized that the period Heero had spent watching him play hadn't been entirely wasted. They were at even strength after 31 ticks off the clock.  
  
The only way Heero could make Deathscythe do one of its special attacks was to hit random buttons, but he did even this in a controlled manner, noting which combinations didn't have the desired effect. Duo, on the other hand, blasted away with Wing's buster rifle at every opportunity. He didn't offer to share the secret, and he knew Heero wouldn't ask for help. Duo was just as happy with that, because Heero was pretty good.  
  
They played the game for the rest of the afternoon.  
  
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On random days, Heero would come to Duo and start playing the fighting game with him. Duo could usually be found practicing, because as it was Heero was gaining on him in skill. The fun-loving young man almost regretted asking Heero to play.  
  
Heero came and sat next to Duo. He reached out and pulled the plastic control from its place where it was out from underfoot when not in use. He slowly unrolled the black cord from around the control and plugged it into the main unit. "I'm playing too," he said to no one. Duo finished his current fight, winning effortlessly, and reset the unit.  
  
Duo was losing to Heero about half the time, which he didn't like. Heero had discovered the special attack combinations later on in that first day, and this was three weeks later. He and Duo were both just as ruthless onscreen with each other as they were with their opponents on the battlefield. Heero, though, was more honorable, or something. He didn't get 'cheap', which Duo was sometimes forced to do in order to eke out a close victory. Backing Heero's Gundam to the side of the screen and pound at it, keeping it off it's feet, just to win. 'Not today, Maxwell,' Duo told himself. It didn't matter anyway: they didn't keep score and if it happened, Heero just stared at the screen, waiting for it to show him the beginning of the next round.  
  
As they battled back and forth for the next few hours, Heero won more often than not. He threw everything he knew into every match and could block almost flawlessly. He never turtelled, hiding behind his shield, and he didn't hang back and shoot either. A... perfect balance of all the elements of play.  
  
Duo was getting frustrated. At one point, he almost threw the controller at the carpet, so irked was he at Heero's perfect playing as well as his seeming distance from this, just like he was from everything. As the Heero-controlled Shenlong threw Duo's Heavyarms across the battlefield like a toy, Duo saw the humor in the situation and laughed, which Heero hadn't heard him do in days.  
  
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Duo came downstairs and heard maniacal laughter as Heero won another match, presumably. 'Heero just *loves* to finish a match with that buster rifle of his,' thought Duo sarcastically. He came into the living room and Heero glanced sideways at him from the corner of his eye. 'Anyone else would have likely tried to taunt me into playing,' Duo knew. 'He's as good at this as he is at everything else. As usual, he knows it.'  
  
Duo sat idly by and watched Heero play for half an hour. Heero pulled off some moves onscreen Duo hadn't even known existed. Glumly he watched as his fellow pilot breezed through the game's hard mode and made it to Epyon. There was a tense moment as Duo thought Heero might actually lose a match to Epyon. He sat up a little straighter, hoping for a chance to gloat.  
  
A thought struck him. 'This isn't me. This isn't Duo Maxwell! I've become single-mindedly fixated on a game. I should be having fun with it, and whether he likes it or not, with Heero!' He sat down next to Heero with a loud thump and grinned widely. "Get the control," Heero said, or ordered rather. Duo was only too happy to comply.  
  
They chose their suits. Heero took the Tallgeese, his least favorite and the one he didn't control as well, while Duo moved his cursor onto Mercurius and pressed a selection button. That was out of the ordinary as both usually took one each of the five original Gundams, leaving Tallgeese, Vayeate, Mercurius, and Wing Zero totally alone. Heero didn't pick Tallgeese out of arrogance or disrespect for Duo's skill, just because he wanted to be skilled with all of the available suits before he retired from the game. Duo was reminded that Mercurius was piloted by Lt. Noin when the "versus" screen appeared. Duo chuckled, knowing Wufei would have debated the difference between "controlling" a woman and "playing AS" a woman.  
  
The first "mission" started. Tallgeese immediately leapt into the air and came down, twin beam sabers red with need. Mercurius blocked, and blew straight into Tallgeese, which also managed to block. Tallgeese grabbed Mercurius, intending to throw it to the ground, but Mercurius grabbed Tallgeese at the same time and both released the hold to gain a better position.  
  
As the first round wound down, Heero drove Tallgeese directly into Mercurius's gunfire and staggered, then performed the same exact same maneuver too fast for Duo to mount a defence. Tallgeese's fist came down onto Mercurius for the win.  
  
Duo grinned, enjoying the challenge. The round had actually been extremely close, neither could have afforded a mistake; and really, no one had made one. Duo had been stuck with the loss, pure and simple. He accepted that.  
  
Round two wasn't over as quickly. Duo took the offence early on and pummeled with his Mercurius at the white, oddly named Tallgeese. He shot at it with blasts from his gun. He punched and kicked and tried to throw the Gundam, and at the end of 99 seconds, Duo was determined to be the winner by the impartial computer, which was unaware of the importance of the titanic struggle that it was being asked to judge.  
  
Round three was half over, time-wise. Mercurius and Tallgeese dove at each other. The moment was frozen in time. Mercurius was grabbed, and roughly thrown to the earth, as Tallgeese stood proudly above it. Duo made his mobile suit stand, silently urging it to destroy the armored Tallgeese, and smiled. Tallgeese bounded twice, Duo had always thought much like a rabbit, and brought all its force to bear onto Mercurius. The attack was shrugged off and returned. The Tallgeese, and her pilot, was suddenly upset and damaged for three-quarters of the life remaining to it. It got up though, and Heero hit the special attack sequence. Duo saw him do it, and blocked the massive volley of energy that came from directly before the Tallgeese. Duo had the smallest sliver of health left to him. Mercurius was hurting, but so was Tallgeese.  
  
'I'm the underdog here,' Duo told himself. 'If this were a movie, something would happen, but nothing disturbs the Perfect Soldier. I can't make him look away from that screen, nothing can. A sudden freak power outage would be too cliche. How can I win? I don't want Noin to lose, either!'  
  
'..I'm going to be the victor. I'm more skilled and less hesitant. If I lose, Maxwell is not going to shut up for a week. That means I have to win..' Heero had time to think as well.  
  
From behind Heero, as he sat watching the mobile suits continuously shifting position, he heard something. The channel changed before his eyes and Duo laughed. Both hit their controllers with abandon, hopefully. Five seconds later, both knew one or the other had lost, each hoping it was not him. While Heero waited for Duo to switch back to channel three, masking his worry and anger. Duo picked up the remote again and whistled, taking his time. He took bit into some pocky and threw a piece to Heero, who "Hnd" when it struck his back. Duo finally hit the "Prev Chan" button, and the monitor obediently returned to channel 03.  
  
  
What the two young warriors saw there shocked both of them, to say the least. Who do you think had won- the lady or the Tallgeese?  
  
***  
  
For those who don't know, Endless Duel is a Gundam Wing fighting game for the Super Famicom. The only way I've played it is as a ROM. Some will like it, some won't, but it can be great fun even single player.  
  
Kudos goes out to the authors who wrote the fics involving:  
Duo and Heero playing Tomb Raider; and  
Heero calling Duo a "braided baka". Thanks.  
And everybody, review. For your own sakes. 


End file.
